Paintings by Dianne Mize

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Thursday, August 12, 2010

This Morning's Quest

Several days ago I noticed dying foliage on one of our oldest and largest back yard trees.  With our house planted right in the middle of our woods and the summer foliage being so lush, I can barely see bits of the browning leaves and thought at first it was illusion caused by the later afternoon light.  But sadly, after taking a closer look, I realized the tree has died.

This morning I decided to make it the focus of my early morning studies.  Because oddly it seemed significant, I chose to make the study larger than usual, not realizing that there was no way I could work fast enough to capture the light changes, and this morning they were rapid and decisive.  Seems like every time I'd look down to mix a color, that particular color would be gone by the time I looked back at the tree.

I literally tired myself out chasing after these fleeting moments.  Time after time I tried to grasp what I was seeing, and time after time it eluded me. Then it hit me square in the face:  I was missing out by not claiming one moment at a time.

Have a happy Thursday.
Dianne

2 comments:

Gaye Sekula: Impressions said...

What a beautiful lesson. Thank you for sharing.

Anonymous said...

Zen. It's a good thing.